by Travis Mateer
Missoula’s relatively new Mayor is backing a supposedly new plan to address homelessness, and this plan is going to be shaped by an organization based in San Francisco called HOMEBASE. Is anyone surprised by this?
If you think bringing in “expertise” from the epicenter of out-of-control homelessness is smart, then I think you are stupid. How many people in our local government are this stupid? A majority?
Reading about this organization’s history left me scratching my head. How can they offer any solutions when their own backyard is literally covered in shit?
Homebase was founded in 1985 in response to community requests for assistance in addressing the newly emerging problem of homelessness. San Francisco Bay Area communities were at a loss as to how to best respond to this new crisis, neither understanding what was causing the influx of people living on the streets and in parks, nor knowing what to do about it. Homebase was launched as a technical assistance resources center for Bay Area communities in their efforts to address homelessness.
From these roots, developing an infrastructure to meet emerging human needs, Homebase has grown into a nationally recognized expert on system redesign, homelessness, and as a skilled capacity builder working with communities across the country.
The Missoulian article crediting this San Francisco organization with giving us a new homeless plan features a problem only someone like me, a Homeless Industrial Complex insider, can identify. Here it is (emphasis mine):
Missoula city officials provided an update on a new strategy they’re working on to address homelessness at a city council meeting on Wednesday.
Called “On Our Way Home: Missoula Community Houselessness Strategy 2025-2028,” the plan lists three main priorities: identify the number of shelter beds necessary for Missoula’s homeless population and pinpoint corresponding housing retention programs for permanent housing, secure funding for programs addressing homelessness, and increase capacity for service providers like the Poverello Center or Hope Rescue Mission.
The plan is being developed by a coalition of local government officials, current and former homeless people and service providers like the Poverello Center. Work on the strategy started in January 2024 after the city allocated $70,000 to a national nonprofit that partners with local governments and providers to end homelessness, called Homebase, to lead the process. Over the last six months a group of project leaders held larger neighborhood meetings and focus groups with formerly homeless people to gather input.
The problem in that first point of emphasis is how one defines the MISSOULA homeless population. Who, exactly, are we including in this definition?
When other people ask this question it’s usually depicted as a product of fear and ignorance. When I ask this question it’s from the perspective of a former Poverello Center staff member of 7 years who knows, from experience, there is a homeless circuit that people travel. Thanks to Armand and the “Denver Voice” I was even able to recently substantiate this notion of homeless travelers telling each other what spots are worth flocking to.
I actually traveled to Denver in August of 2023 to research the life of Sean Stevenson before he came to Montana, but I didn’t say a lot about my visit in that post I linked to, which includes a picture of a nice United Way building.
Why a United Way building? Well, before finding himself homeless again in Montana, Sean had been living on the steps of a church in Denver, and near this church is where United Way was renovating a building. Since United Way, as a “non-profit”, has to justify their status by appearing to do charitable shit, Sean became one of those marketable stories that United Way took and promoted in exchange for helping Sean get into a subsidized apartment.
To highlight this time in his life, one of Sean’s sister sent me this photo of him sitting behind the Colorado Governor’s desk last month on the fifth anniversary of Sean’s death at the hands of the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.
While my Missoula community has done its best to ignore the implications of Sean’s life and how it was ended inside a private hospital room by the Sheriff’s Office, I have essentially dismantled my own life attempting to understand this new world Sean’s death opened up to me, and in doing so incurred the wrath of the narrative controllers who are doing EVERYTHING in their power right now to shut me up.
After enduring an amazing depiction of me in court this week trying to reduce my 15 years of civic engagement through writing down to the rantings of a dangerously obsessed and unhinged threat who provides NOTHING OF VALUE to society, I realized something. Perhaps my work as the Trash Alchemist of Missoula trying to thrive (well, just survive, actually) during my Lego Meth Lab Summer inside a box truck wasn’t fully understood by everyone, so let me reiterate where I think my strength resides: pile your garbage on top of me and I’ll just wear it like Marjory did, with style.
I have removed tons of garbage, I have studied garbage, and, during those semi-manic episodes I think of as synchronicity storms, I have even talked to garbage, so calling me garbage is really just par for the course. Also, I smell the distinct odor of projection, since a lot of people in this country are suddenly being forced into the realization that SO MUCH of their media is manipulated garbage.
While I continue to pay the price for persisting, in my Gonzo style, with this citizen journalist thing, I’ll wrap up today’s post with some Reddit commentary on the lack of journalism regarding University of Montana campus issues, then I’ll quote from that “so-called” journalist, Matt Taibbi, who took a recent I TOLD YOU SO TOUR like I did last year.
And Taibbi:
If you agree with the “so-called” journalist, Matt, that this is an ALAMO moment for the first amendment (and I do), then my final question is one I’ve asked before: what are YOU going to do about it?
I don’t want to be a martyr, but I will be if that’s what’s required to get this town to realize how NOT fucking brilliant and enlightened they are, no matter HOW much Harvard our current Mayor claims to have benefited from.
Mayor Davis, backed by the duplicitous schemer of Missoula’s United Way, want votes again from Missoula citizens, and if you think the “award-winning” PULP will be anywhere near critical of our current Mayor like my NEEDLE TRAP coverage has been, well, you’re an idiot.
But that’s ok, I have sympathy for idiots, since I was one, and, still too often, can act like one, especially when it comes to that biological flaw of hetero-human attraction our species DOES still require to propagate ourselves forward into the future.
Despite only serving two years so far, Davis believes her biggest accomplishments include the development of 89 affordable homes, the adoption of the Our Missoula 2045 Land Use Plan, and what she considers the strengthening of public safety.
Davis says that if re-elected, she’s looking forward to establishing a more responsive local government.
Or (please, God) someone else’s?
Don’t worry, no money donated to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) will be applied to threatening our narrative controllers with a political run. The new charges I’m being threatened with will more than likely, by design, keep me too busy for anything TRULY idiotic like becoming a professional liar (politician) for a paycheck.
Thanks for reading!
